The latest version of MidJourney is alarmingly-good at producing high-res images. And it’s only a matter of time before those still images are put together to create the moving picture — movies. But for the fact that politically the United States may collapse into chaos in late 2024, early 2025, I would say that Hollywood’s goose is cooked.
At least the human part of it.
But just like the development of TV was delayed by WW2, it’s possible that an American Second Civil War / WW3 may delay the roll out of AI. It could be that not until that particular political clusterfuck is sorted out that before AGI is reached and we have to deal with the economic implications of all that.
WASHINGTON D.C. — In a stunning historic series of events, the House of Representatives yesterday named comedian Jon Stewart as Speaker of the House. Within moments of this surreal vote, a joint statement by Speaker Stewart and the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that because of the 14th Amendment both the presidency and the vice presidency were officially vacant.
See reportage of the beginning of World War 3 on pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
In line with this decision, Speaker Stewart was sworn in as 47th President of the United States in a nod to the legal theory that Trump was never president in the first place. The Red State reaction to these stunning turn of events was swift. Last night saw the a majority of the Red Southern states call up secessionist conventions.
The Commonwealth of Virginia, however, was wracked with such political violence that no decision could be made about calling such a convention there.
Meanwhile, the nation was gripped with the fear of a race war in the South because of the massive political difference between Red whites and Blue African Americans. A number of notable Southern African American politicians call for peace and calm. But the rage of the African American community within much of the South was proving difficult to contain as massive crowds attempted to obstruct the ability for secessionist conventions to be held at all.
Now-President Jon Stewart gave an address to the nation from the Oval Office making it clear that any attempt on the part of Red States to secede was illegal and would be dealt with in an appropriate manner.
“We defeated secession once, we can do it again,” President Stewart said.
I’m reading a lot about the rise of the Nazi Party these days — as one does — and the most telling thing about it all is what a Great Man of History Hitler was. He did not just drift through history, he bent it to his will. Even though he was unfocused and sometimes lazy, when the time came to strike, he was willing to do the hard work necessary to further his greater political ambition.
MEANWHILE, malignant ding-dong Trump is nothing more than a vessel, an avatar for white Christian (male) rage over the browning of America and the increasing sexual, political and economic agency of women. He really doesn’t have to do anything. His followers imbue him with their hopes and dreams because they see him as a “fighter” who will “own the libs” every single opportunity he has.
But, if you’re not a member of the MAGA cult, it’s clear that Trump is very very dumb and very very lazy. He is so lazy and has a such poor abstract cognitive abilities that he had four years to consolidate autocratic rule in the United States — that was what he was elected to do by his supporters in the first place — and he waited until the very, very, very, very last moment to actually do anything.
That is not at all what someone like Hitler would have done.
And, now, we have Trump’s second attempt.
If — and this is a big if — Trump wins re-election in 2024, then he will have thousands of toadies willing to be a MAGA “deep state” that will corrupt the administration of justice and power to the point that the United States will join Turkey, Hungary and Russia as just another autocratic state.
But there two issues when thinking about this.
One is, while I fear if Trump loses that he will demand a National Divorce — and, as such a civil war — to keep his sorry ass out of jail, he is so unpredictable, and so lazy, that it could be that for all his ranting about the need for a National Divorce in late 2024 if he loses…nothing happens. We punt our severe structural problems down the road about four years and all my “hysterical doom shit” will be laughed at. (I really want this outcome!)
Meanwhile if Trump WINS, things really get unpredictable because he won’t be smooth about the implementation of autocracy like a President DeSantis might be. He will go for the jugular of American democratic institutions in such a way that he will piss of A LOT of people who would otherwise just shrug and let him slowly consolidate power.
If Trump literally starts to snatch political opponents of the street in early 2025 there will be a lot of people — many of whom even voted for him — who will sit up and take notice. A lot — A LOT of Traditionalists just want brown kids put back in cages and they would be horrified if Trump used the weaponized ICE infrastructure to put Jews, the gay and the mentally ill in camps as well.
A lot of Traditionalists mean well but when things get personal, they will, at last, reach a red line that they simply haven’t had to date. When a Traditionalist’s bonkers relative is sent to a camp to “make sure they take their medication” without due process then Trump is going to have a problem.
This brings up an interesting situation — if Trump really does try to deport 20 million undocumented people in the United States, that is going to cause a massive amount of political, social and economic chaos. And without anyone to stop him trying to do this, all that chaos is going to not only rile a lot of Blues and Traditionalists up, but it will give rise of Radical Moderates who won’t just rant on Twitter about how upset they are — they will take direct action like General Strikes. (NOT ADVOCATING ANYTHING!)
Another issue — what the fuck is going to happen with the U.S. Military? That’s the thing I keep learning about with Hitler. The SA were instrumental to his consolidation of power in 1933. Trump coming into office in 2025 won’t have any sort of build-out paramilitary group at his disposal. He’ll have the U.S. Military, but the American military is, at its heart, a democratic institution and I struggle to believe it will be all that happy with being Trump’s goons.
Of course, it’s possible Trump will lean into weaponizing the existing ICE infrastructure, but even then the US is a huge, decentralized nation with a well established democratic tradition. Trump’s dream of ruling Blue portions of the country as a Red King will take time to implement, even under the best of conditions.
So if Trump wins in 2024, I simply can’t tell you what might happen in 2025. It’s very possible that Trump could be his own worst enemy. He will be so hateful and excited to strike back and everyone he feels has slighted him that he will make a sizable portion of the American population very, very upset.
But I can’t predict that future. I’m just *trying* make an educated guess.
March, 2025 NEW YORK CITY — A radical resistance group calling themselves “the Blue Meanies” continued their occupation of Trump Tower, with no end in sight. The group’s long-term seizure of the NYC landmark was made possible in large part by the support of not just of the population of the city, but the city government.
There continue to be rumblings at City Hall that if the Trump Administration attempted to recapture the tower that a “free state” would be declared. These events happen as the Trump Administration’s long-term viability continues to be questioned.
The U.S. Military has all but halted its operations in major Blue portions of the nation as a Women’s Strike called 48 hours ago has now expanded into a General Strike. Millions of Blues across the United States have simply not gone into work, causing a brutal slowdown in national economic activity.
“This is far worse than what happened briefly during COVID,” Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Rattner said. “We risk a long-term global depression if this continues just a few more days. The economic pressure on the part of the Blue Meanies to do something about the Trump Administration is real.”
All indications point to the Blue Meanies leader Jon Stewart — who has been repeatedly photographed in various comic poses within what was once Donald Trump’s inner sanctum — is at the center of the growing national opposition to the Trump Administration.
“I think we need to take a long, hard look at the 14 Amendment,” Stewart said in a late night press conference deep inside Trump Tower. “It is clear that Trump isn’t even legally president and, as such, can legally be removed from office. In fact, I believe the office of POTUS to be vacant.”
Stewart denied rumors that he expected to be installed as acting president by the U.S. Military if Trump was forcibly removed from office.
“We, and everyone else, just want the Constitutional process to be followed,” Stewart said.
Meanwhile, the president has made it clear that the seizure of his beloved Trump Tower “will not stand.” Given the reluctance of the U.S. Military to follow his orders, he has put out a call for “MAGA shocktroops” to flood Blue areas of the country which are currently resisting his rule.
The governors of several major Red States have called a conference to co-ordinate what their response might be if the goals of the Blue Meanies are met and Trump is deposed.
“Secession is not off the table,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tweeted.
The chaos in the United States has not gone unnoticed by the outside world (see related stories). All evidence suggests that the DPRK may invade South Korea at any moment. The rumors that Trump may be using his “special relationship” with Kim Jung Un to start a distraction on the Korean peninsula were vehemently denied by a White House spokesman.
Enough time has passed that The Terminator franchise can be hard rebooted. You start from the beginning with a new, young cast. You redo The Terminator only with a significantly bigger budget. And, if you really wanted to go crazy, you might could even use AI to use a “young” Ah-nuld to play the Terminator role again, only in a new, rebooted story.
But should you do this, you make a crucial change to the plot in an effort to surprise audiences — you use the multiverse concept to throw them for a loop. It could be the big secret of the reboot — that when the dude is sent back in time to save Sarah Connor — he doesn’t realize he’s been sent into a DIFFERENT TIMELINE.
How, exactly, this would work in what would be a new, open-ended franchise, I don’t know. But that’s why they pay Hollywood suits the big bucks.
There is a lot of discourse online about how the producers of the coming A24 movie, “Civil War” apparently are completely clueless about modern American politics. But, to me, it’s clear they know damn well what they’re doing by coming up with such a weird scenario for a civil war.
Had they decided to do a hyper realistic Blue vs. Red scenario, it would have been a no-win situation. They would have had to have picked a “good” side. Or, really, even if they had been non-judgmental about who was “good” and who was “bad” in the civil war, both sides in real world would have gotten VERY ANGRY at how “objective” the producers were trying to be.
So, the producers of the movie punted and came up with a fictional scenario with no connection at all to the real world. The more I think about it, the more I realize there just was no way for the producers of “Civil War” to give people what they want — a battle royal between Reds and Blues in movie form.
As an aside, I think what we need is a Threads-type movie about a civil war in the United States. Any civil war / revolution in the United States will suck so bad that we’re all going to regret we let it happen, no matter what our politics may be.
February, 2025: NEW YORK CITY — A so-called “glorious revolution” began last night when ICE agents interrupted the live broadcast of Saturday Night Live to arrest the show’s executive producer Lorne Michaels for “crimes against the people.” A stunned nation watched in horror as Michaels was cuffed and frog walked out of 30 Rock by armed ICE agents.
“Viva the glorious revolution” Michaels screamed as he left the studio.
Within moments of this scene, a large crowd of New Yorkers assembled in front Fox News studios, The Wall Street Journal and Trump Tower. Things grew violent when ICE agents repeatedly fired upon the crowd. The sheer size of the crowd grew too large for the ICE agents, however and the so-called “Taking of Trump Tower” began (See Sidebar.)
The rest of last night saw unpreceded violence across the nation. Cities ranging from NYC, to LA to Chicago descended into chaos. Reports that the U.S. Military — called into these cities last month upon the invocation of the Insurrection Act by the president — were refusing to fire on protesters or, in some cases, were joining them.
These events take place as the America has been on edge since the Second Trump Administration began last month.
“It was only a matter of time before something happened,” one political analyst told the press early this morning.
All eyes now look towards the U.S. Military. While the general consensus is that the enlisted will support Trump’s efforts to crush Blues, a question lingers over the officer corp.
Last we heard of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, she was walking away from the Mr. & Mrs. Smith TV show that she was supposed to do with Donald Glover. She was also in the latest Indiana Jones movie (which I largely liked.) But other than that, she’s been pretty quiet.
She has such talent, it’s annoying that she’s decided to go radio silent for such an extended amount of time. The hope is, of course, that she’s hard at work at some really cool movie. I’d like to see her do an Annie Hall-like movie, but seen from a female POV. And have START in LA and END in NYC.
I think it would be amusing to have a Fleabag-like character chase after a guy she met in London. The culture shock of a Fleabag-like character living in LA then NYC would be a real hoot.
I still think she would be great to play Dr. Susan Calvin in an Amazon Prime limited series. She’s would be perfect for the role and the current mass popularity of AI would be a great hook for a bunch of stories about a “robot psychiatrist.”
I continue to get very…mysterious…pings in my Webstats from people poking around deep inside the site out of nowhere. The latest person is using Google Proxy so I have even less information about them than usual.
I can never tell if these mysterious people are interested in my political ranting or my creative ranting. I don’t even know if they’re doing some sort of due diligence on me for this or that reason.
It’s all very curious. I only bring it up because I’m such an anonymous nobody that *any* attention I get from someone trying to hide their domain name, etc is enough to pique my interest. But as “JCal” says, “chaos is a ladder” so, who knows, maybe when the US collapses into civil war, revolution and or tyranny I’ll become someone of note.
What’s more, I got a notification from Facebook telling me I qualified to be a “professional creator” because my content’s high engagement. This makes — on the face of it — no sense. I’ve noticed no additional engagement from my activity on Facebook. This makes me wonder if maybe people are looking at all the Facebook Lives I’ve posted to this site over the years (for some unknown reason) and I have videos with a lot of views and I just don’t know about it.
I continue to believe I have one last hattrick in me. But death be not proud. I could drop dead any day now and never live up to that “potential.”
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